transparency

Veteran

In GFX programs (photoshop/gimp etc) I've never understood why transparency is not handled with a separate channel eg like the alpha channel, why is baked into the actual RGB (yes you have pre multiple alpha etc) but its always a royal PITA to work with eg a PNG with transparency.
If transparency is low ~10% you cant actually see what the color is, having a separate greyscale image just makes working with them easier
so WTF did they make it the way they did?

VeteranRegular

You can apply a bitmap mask to a layer in photoshop, which is basicically the separate grayscale layer you wished for.
Now if you inport a transparent png, there is no way to transfer its transparency into that mask unfortunatelly.
Well not an easy one, at least. What I've done, sometimes is create hundreds of copies of the same png in place and merge them all, effectivelly making opaque everything that is not 100% trasnparent. After that I recreate the mask by getting one last coppy of the png over a solid black layer, and I make the color of the png completely white (by creating a solid white layer on top of it and alt+clicking the space between both layers) and merging everything. Presto. You've got your opaque png, and separate mask.

Veteran

OK thanks mate, yeah I've done that before, copied and pasted the same transparent PNG over itself a lot of times, to get rid of the transparency, the thing is its not exact some of those pixels may be at ~99% transparency but to your eyes thats looks like 100%.
Im guessing GFX artists just don't save their graphics in a png format, cause once its baked its not easily changed.
What are the most common non lossy formats used then?

Veteran

yes psd is a good file format, as it saves a files history (though at no doubt a larger file), though windows explorer doesnt show a preview. I usually use .tga.
Im gonna try the followinghttps://www.cherubicsoft.com/en/projects/sagethumbs
I just find it strange that the most common lossless file is actually not that great for image creation, though perhaps that aids for copyright

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